Gustavo Dudamel on 60 Minutes
Here is an interesting video on the young conducting sensation Gustavo Dudamel on 60 Minutes. Maestro Dudamel has been taking the classical music scene by storm in recent years. At only 27 years of age, he been appointed music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic which will effectively start in the 2009-2010 season . Before his appointment in L.A., many American orchestras were going after him including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is currently Principal Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and is in his ninth year as Music Director of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in Venezuela. He has many debuts in the 2007-2008 season including the Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin Stattsoper.
Gustavo burst onto the global music scene when he won the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in 2004. Up until then, he was relatively unknown outside of his native Venezuela. He has garnered a great deal of press coverage in the past couple of years. To read an excellent article about him in the New York Times magazine click here. He has also been featured in Time and Newsweek.
It is very exciting to think about the potential and future of this great talent. I think he is filling a void that has been present in the classical music field for some time now. There has been a lull in the quest to find the next great conductor. A handful of orchestras have been going entire seasons without having a music director and even experimenting with having multiple conductors. There is always the case when orchestras have a music director and they collectively don’t like him/her. Given the current state of classical music looking for leaders and vision in the 21st century, Dudamel fits the bill perfectly. He has the charisma and personality that if marketed properly, could make his orchestras a total sensation. He will make classical music concerts extremely exciting. This will be infectious to the public at large. Instead of orchestra concerts being the same mundane thing, he will bring an energy that the audience can feed on. This is what music is all about, stirring emotions and feeling better than when you entered the concert hall. I look forward very much to the day I can play under his baton.
You can also visit his own website at www.GustavoDudamel.com.
1 comment February 27th, 2008
